The Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed budget took a hit of more than $100 million in just a few hours Tuesday night from Republican amendments to a massive spending bill.
The House is debating amendments to a $32.1 billion funding bill for the Department of Interior and EPA. The bill originally put the budget for the EPA at $7.98 billion, its lowest amount in three decades and $164 million less than the current year.
The biggest chunk of the EPA’s budget that was amended in the bill would see Congress increase the amount of money put toward preventing wildfires.
Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., led a group of western lawmakers who proposed an amendment to take $70 million from the EPA’s operating budget and instead have it be put toward the U.S. Forest Service’s Hazardous Fuels Fund. The Hazardous Fuels Fund is a part of the Forest Service’s wildfire budget, which lawmakers have proposed spending $2.9 billion on next year.
The money would go toward clearing forests of down and dead wood, which can fuel wildfires and help them blaze out of control. Gosar said the original amount requested by President Obama in his budget, $356 million, for this fund simply wasn’t enough.
He said the U.S. Forest Service is currently forced to raid money from other areas in order to fight wildfires.
“This represents another classic example of Washington’s misguided use of federal funds,” he said.
The amendment was passed on a voice vote. The House was in the process of considering 131 amendments to the funding bill Tuesday evening and could vote on full passage of the budget later Tuesday night or later on this week.
Gosar argued the EPA would not be underfunded in the budget.
Other amendments were already proposing taking more money from the EPA Tuesday evening.
An amendment from Rep. Morgan Griffith, R-W.Va., would reduce funding from the EPA’s Power+ program, which goes toward retraining coal workers, and instead invest that money in cities in coal country. That amendment was adopted by a voice vote.
Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, proposed an amendment to increase the budget of the EPA’s Office of the Inspector General by taking money out of the EPA’s operating budget. Chaffetz’s amendment put $10 million to the Inspector General and decreased the operating budget by an extra $4 million, bringing the total hit to the EPA’s operating budget to $14 million.
Democrats complained that the EPA’s proposed operating budget had been reduced by more than $100 million in just a few hours Tuesday night.
Rep. Chellie Pingee, D-Maine, said she felt the Republican amendments were a way to try and harm the EPA instead of helping other areas of government.
“I’m starting to feel like we’re seeing amendment after amendment that is a way to starve the EPA,” she said. “The EPA is an important agency, the air we breathe and the water we drink are threatened by the policy decisions that are being made in this bill.”
